by Anna Przednowek, PhD student in Social Work, VAW Hub RA
Recently, CFICE’s Violence Against Women (VAW) hub community leaders and senior scholars commended Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a formal letter, for committing to hold a National Inquiry into Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. The VAW hub participants called upon Prime Minister Trudeau to consider putting the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), a national Aboriginal women’s organization, in a leadership position for the inquiry process.
This process is especially significant to Aboriginal women and girls, Aboriginal Peoples, Canadian women and people. “At its core, the Inquiry is about Aboriginal women’s and girls’ right to substantive equality, safety and security,” reads the letter. The Inquiry itself is also a matter of respect for all Aboriginal women, and should have NWAC playing a lead role in every step of the inquiry process, including the implementation of inquiry recommendations. This will hopefully ensure that the process is yet not another example of “colonial imperialism and patriarchal dominance”. With the interest of violence against women at its core, the VAW hub stands in solidarity with NWAC. Our members look forward to this process, and see it as a major step towards ending violence against women and girls in Canada.